it out and made the hole larger. Then they tried again, but the wing
was still too wide. They turned it and made several efforts to get it
in sideways, and upside down, but it was impossible; so they lifted it
away, and again enlarged the hole. But the wing would not yet go in.
Without losing patience, they once more went to work, and, after
having labored for three hours and a half, they at last had the
pleasure of seeing their dried wing safely pulled into their
store-room.

[Illustration]

Then, there are spiders. They frequently show the greatest skill and
cunning in the construction of their webs and the capture of their
prey, and naturalists say that the spider has a very well developed
brain. They must certainly have a geometrical talent, or they could
not arrange their webs with such regularity and scientific accuracy.
Some spiders will throw their webs across streams that are quite wide.

Now, to do this, they must show themselves to be engineers of no small
ability. Sometimes they fasten one end of a thread to a twig on one
side of the stream, and, hanging on the other end, swing over until
they can land on the other side. But this is not always possible, for
they cannot, in some places, get a chance for a fair swing. In such a
case, they often wait until the wind is blowing across the stream
from the side on which they are, and, weaving a long line, they let it
out until the wind carries it over the stream, and it catches in the
bushes or grass on the other side. Of course, after one thread is
over, the spider can easily run backward and forward on it, and carry
over all the rest of his lines.

[Illustration]

Bees have so much sense that we ought almost to beg their pardon when
we speak of their instinct. Most of us have read what Huber and others
have told us of their plans, inventions, laws, and regular habits. It
is astonishing to read of a bee-supervisor, going the round of the
cells where the larvae are lying, to see if each of them has enough
food. He never stops until he has finished his review, and then he
makes another circuit, depositing in each cell just enough food--a
little in this one, a great deal in the next, and so on.

There were once some bees who were very much disturbed by a number of
great moths who made a practice of coming into their hives and
stealing their honey. Do what they could, the bees could not drive
these strong creatures out.

But they soon hit upon a plan to save